yesterday my friend hugged me and hit my fresh double conch pretty hard. he was kind of fucked up, and i was sober so it was just a recipe for bad. the piercings swelled up to the entire length of the barbell and hurt worse than when i got them pierced. i took some ibuprofen and did my regular sss and it helped with the pain and throbbing but didn't help too much with the swelling.

heres how it looked a day after piercing:

heres how it looked this morning after being bumped last night:

i don't have pictures of the back of my conch before it got hit, but i looked at it in the mirror and stuff and i can assure you it did not look like this. i had at least 1mm of extra barbell.

does anyone have any tips for reducing swelling? or am i just going to have to wait until this subsides? i'm not so much worried about pain as pressure on the piercing.

Damn, girl!  Did he fall on you!?

Continue what you're doing.  You may need to go to your piercer to get longer barbells so it'll have more room to swell so it can heal faster. (that was a wordy sentence! Sorry!)  Just try to be patient...

BTW - they look good in your ear! 

he just hugged me really hard but like did that thing where you kind of move your shoulders up and hug deeper, and i'm short so his arm just like mooshed my conch really hard. :(

but yeah if the swelling doesn't go down any today i'm going to see my piercer today or tomorrow. it doesn't hurt or throb anymore so i think it'll be fine eventually, but i just wanted to get another opinion.

but thanks! :)

You may want to head back to your piercer for a longer barbell, at least while you get over this trauma.

Congrats on the double conch; I'm partial to them. ;D

 yeah i decided im going to just go there today just so my piercer can take a look at it and tell me what he thinks. its better not to risk it.

 ahhhh yeah its still swelling, i took ibuprofen again but it started to swell over the prongs on the front ball. i'm heading out to my piercer like, right now.

 well, somehow on the 15 minute drive to my piercer, my ear miraculously stopped eating the balls on my barbells. its looking a lot better now and i didn't have to get my barbells changed out. but, thanks wissabo and axon for your advice :)

 I'm kind of surprised that he/she didn't change them out anyway, given that it had been swollen way too much for the bars that are in. Glad it's doing better, though!

 i have nothing to add except AAAGH! that happens to me when i hug some of my shorter friends. it has put me off hugging for a bit. it hurts sooo much.

 yeah i really thought he would too but the time i had gotten there he said just make sure i watch it really carefully and soak it an extra time, keep taking ibuprofen and if it swells up any more i have to come in immediately to get them changed out. i think he just didn't want to change the barbells on such a fresh piercing if he didn't absolutely have to. he said that the morning after is always the worst.

 Oh man, the first time this happened to me when i had my fresh conch it was instant tears. Everyone thought I just found out someone died or something. I was lucky it didn't swell as much as yours. 

You can also try some ice wrapped in a wet washcloth. This way it's cold but wont be so cold it burns your skin. It's not super useful since you can't get it directly on the piercing, but gently moving it around on some of the swollen skin should at least make it feel better. 

SilentxAtrophy:

Or you could even try soaking it in ice cold water. Like you'd do a sss... I'm sure that'd feel real niiiiiice and help with the swelling quite well. :)

i've been doing that a little bit cause i've found that when i try to ice it i end up bumping it with the ice and it hurts more than i started out with :X

today i had to go back to my piercer cause it swelled up over the prongs again... got my 5/16" barbells changed out for 7/16" ones. i must say it was one of the most traumatic piercing moments of my life. my ear had already hurt twice as bad as when i got it pierced when i went in there, and then he had to unscrew the balls which made me tear up and use a few choice words. i have a really high pain tolerance and i'm pretty good with biting the bullet but this was borderline unbearable. half way through i was thinking, "how did all this happen? how did i get myself into this??"

i think it would have been way better if he had changed them out yesterday cause it was definitely worse today but i'm just glad its over. he had to drain it while i was there though and all day i've had crusty clear stuff dripping down the back of my ear and onto my plug :( but better out than in.

gotta say congrats for doing 'the right thing' and that it seems to be working out for ya.  bummer that it took an extra day and hurt so much...  i guess the lesson to learn is that you have a lot of swelling (esp on cart) and to start with a much-larger-than-normal-oversize jewelry for 'next time'...  hope that it is still healing/feeling better now...  gl, h.

 really beautiful piercing and jewelry . . . really sad story.  I wonder if it was just the trauma; it sounds like it became infected - you said it was fresh. 

I'd be interested hearing why you decided on a double like that, and how you chose the jewelry